Monthly Archives: October 2014

Lot sat on the edge of her bed, still wrapped in her towel, staring at her painted toe nails. She was vaguely aware that she’d been sitting here too long, her hair was starting to dry in untidy curls around her face, and soon people would start showing up to help her do—well, whatever it was she was supposed to be doing today. She was sure people would forgive her for not being the most perfect host, grief being an excellent excuse and all, but she wasn’t sure they’d like it if she went about her day only wrapped in a towel.

She managed to lift her eyes away from her toes to the outfit handing on the hook next to her mirror. The red shirt may have seemed a bit bright, a bit flamboyant for her role as grieving daughter, but that had been her Mom’s favorite shirt on her. Lot wouldn’t dare wear anything else. Besides, she could just hear it. “Oh, don’t wear black, Lotte. Pale skin, dark hair, red lips, you put on all black and you look like a vampire want to be. You can read Twilight if you must, but I will put my foot down when you start looking at fangs to glue to your teeth. Honestly, you think we have the skin tone to wear black? Use your eyes.” Lot almost laughed at the disbelieving tone her mother’s voice took, before remembering it was just a memory—an echo in Lot’s head, and then she felt like crying again. Either way, it was decided, she wasn’t going to wear black to her mother’s memorial. But now she just had to work up the energy (courage?) to stand up and actually put her clothes on.

There were three little taps at the door, and then it swung open slightly, revealing a tall beautiful man with his hands half covering his face, peeking through his fingers. “Lot, you decent? Oh damn, you are.” He let his hand fall to his sides, and offered her a ‘let me know if I’m pushing it’ smile. He wasn’t. God bless Colt. He seemed to be the only one who knew how to balance the line between treating her like glass and being so normal that it was calloused. She was more and more grateful for him with every passing moment.

Ashleigh appeared behind him, peeking around his shoulder with a ‘tsk.’ “She’s not dressed, Colt.”

“That’s the way I like her best,” Colt teased, dropping on to the bed next to Lot, causing her to bounce a little. He leaned over and kissed her on the top of the head, before looking up at the outfit she had hung as well. “Oo, I like that outfit too. Is there a reason that you haven’t gotten around to putting it on? Were you hoping that I’d show up?”

“Colt,” Ashleigh protested weakly.

“It’s fine, Ash.” Lot’s voice sounded rough to her own ears, and she realized it was the first time she’d spoken since she and her uncle had left the crematorium the afternoon before. They hadn’t wanted to do a big thing for the actual cremation, so now everyone was coming over to the house for a low-budget memorial. Her mom’s lawyer was coming to, to help them go through her will and figure out exactly what was happening with the estate. Her brothers—men she literally hadn’t seen since she was five—might be coming as well, according to her Uncle Charlie, but Lot was selfishly hoping they wouldn’t, because that was just an added level of stress she didn’t want to deal with. It all washed over her, and for a moment she felt sick. She leaned against Colt’s shoulder and looked up at Ash with tears in her eyes. “I don’t want to do this.”

“Yeah,” Ashleigh said sympathetically, leaning against the door frame, while Colt rubbed small comforting circles on her back. “I don’t really want to do it either. Miss Bobbi was a good woman, we know that, but we have to go out there and let everyone say she was such a good woman, and that they are sorry for your loss, but Colt is here for you, and I am here for you, and we just have to get through today.”

Colt dropped another kiss on the top of Lot’s head, and she gave him a one-armed hug, making sure to hold her towel in place for Ashleigh’s sake. “Thanks guys, I appreciate it.”

“Come on,” Ashleigh stepped forward to grab Colt’s arm and help pull him away from the bed, “If I leave you two alone in here, I know that you guys will lay down for ‘just a minute’ and then you’ll be asleep and I won’t see either of you again for hours.”

“She knows us too well,” Colt protested as he let Ashleigh lift him up, “Love you, Lot. We’ll be back in fifteen minutes.” Colt reached out for her, as if they were in a dramatic romance movie, being forcibly separated by armed guards rather than the gentle pushing of a woman a least half a foot shorter than he was, and not nearly as strong. Lot smiled again, even as Ashleigh rolled her eyes at them both before shutting the door.

The first thing she did after the battle was find Oliver. People wanted to talk to her, ask her questions or find out what they should do, but she ignored them all, pushing through the crowds to where Oliver and Alexa agreed to meet with her. If they were alive, that’s where they’d be.

She saw him and everything else disappeared. She took a second to process the cuts on his face and neck, and the burn on his upper arm, but without another word she wrapped an arm around the side of his neck that wasn’t bleeding, and kissed him squarely on the lips.

When she stepped back, he blinked his eyes open slowly, a stupid grin forming on his face. “Worth it,” he laughed, “Whatever has happened, whatever this fall out—it was worth it.”

“Okay.” It was about the third time she’d said that, and he could still see the gears turning in her head as she tried to piece it all together. “Okay, I think I’ve got it, but just in case I haven’t a clue, run it by me again.”

“Right. My biological got pregnant just before she turned 18, by another high school senior who turned out to be a real dick, so I don’t know who he is because he would just deny me anyways. My mother didn’t like the idea of raising me alone, but my aunt couldn’t face the thought of me going off to live with strangers, so through a series of twisted events I ended up adopted by my mother’s identical twin sister and her then fiancé, now husband. They are the ones I call Mom and Dad and then there is Aunt Marta. So, biologically speaking Mom is my aunt and my aunt is my mother.”

“Okay,” she repeated once again and Arthur tried not to laugh at the look on her face. It was strange, he knew that, but she was just so adorable as she figured it all out. “So—that makes Michelle and Zachary?”

“Legally, my sister and brother. Biologically, my cousins.”

“Okay.” She said one last time, slumping back against the couch. “When you said complicated family I thought you mean you had a lot of second and third cousins you were close to or something. I can genuinely say I was not expecting all this.” She reached out and put a hand on his knee, and the tried to act like a choir hadn’t just started singing inside his head. “When did they tell you all this? Did they, like, sit you down on your tenth birthday and explain it all or something?”

“Uh, no. It was never a secret. I don’t remember them ever telling me—I just always knew what was up. Well,” Arthur tried to nonchalantly lace his fingers between hers, “I guess they didn’t tell me about my biological father until I was old enough to ask about him. But that always made sense to me, because there was really no reason to mention that he didn’t want me when I was a toddler. I can’t imagine that would have been too good for my psyche.”

“No—I suppose not.” She gave his hand a squeeze, and he couldn’t help but grin like an idiot. “So, your Aunt Marta?” He nodded she was correct before she carried on, “She never got married? Had any other kids. No cousins who are actually siblings or anything like that?”

“Oh, no,” Arthur laughed, “No, no. A.M. was never the settling type, or really the raise a child type. She’s been dating Frank a while now—a full thirteen months if I’ve got my timeline right, so that’s kind of cool. She lived with us until I was—oh goodness, Michelle was born when I was nine, so she lived with us ‘til I was seven and half or so, and then I don’t think she’s lived in the same place for more than a year since. And she loves every second of it. We see her at all the major holidays, and she hasn’t missed a birthday yet, so more power to her.”

“And what about you, Arthur Wilson? Do you have a wandering soul?”

Arthur tried to believe there wasn’t a double meaning behind that question, but then answered like there was one anyway. “No, not really. I’m more a settle and nest type.”

She smiled up at him, and his stomach did a somersault. “That’s very good to know.”

I moved towards him so fast that I all but crashed into him. But he hugged me and I melded into him and I let myself admit everything. “I love you, Thom. I have since we were about six but I never wanted to say anything because I knew that we didn’t have time for that kind of nonsense, I knew that we’d spending the rest of our lives fighting for our lives, but for the first time I really almost lost you Thom, and I never want to go through that again, not with laying it all out on the line. Not without you knowing everything. Please, don’t leave, don’t go, don’t do that again.” I was sobbing now, but I couldn’t remember starting to cry. I felt Thomas’s hands and arms move carefully, supporting me, comforting me, half carrying me back to the couch. Some small silly part of my brain understood that if we were sitting there, Brian had fled. Not that I could really blame him, I’d gone from fine to insane in about three seconds flat. I’d flee from me to if that were an option.

But Thomas, for his credit, didn’t seemed to be freaking out. He looked at me in a way I don’t remember him ever looking at me before. He was so calm, so careful, and seemed so–at peace? This was a man who had literally just gotten home from war, where he had been held capture. Where he had been tortured. He should have been all kinds of not calm–but he looked at peace.

“Nessie,” he said the nick name that only he could get away with. “Nessie,” he repeated, this time almost like a sigh. “Nessie,” a third time, and suddenly I understood. I looked him in the eye and I could see what he was trying to say.

“I’m just so glad you’re home,” I told him.

It was his turn to crash into me, pulling me into a hug so tight that I almost couldn’t breathe, but I didn’t dare say anything. I never wanted him to let me go. I never wanted to be without him.

But he did let me go. He carefully released me, slowly, bit by bit, like he could only convince himself to break contact with me centimeter by centimeter. He let his hands slide down my arms though, so that at the end we sat facing each other, holding hands. “Nessie, I can’t right now.” He admitted weakly, “I want to. I want you. And I’ve been dreaming of a day like this my entire life but–”

“Stop.” I said, perhaps a little sharper than I meant to, “Stop making excuses, stop feeling guilty. Whatever it is you need to do, do it. I said my piece. Take your time. I’m not going anywhere. We can do, or not do, at your pace.”

Thomas lifted our joined hands up to his lips and kissed my knuckle gently. “I’m going to go, Ness. I need to talk to Brian and Ciara, and the council. And then I need a healthy dose of sedatives and about three days of dreamless sleep. But, I’ll come and find you, all right? The very first second that I can, I’ll come and find you. And we’ll figure us, whatever we are, the first moment I can.”

I didn’t trust myself to speak, so I just nodded. Thomas kissed my knuckle again, before letting his hand drop away from mine. He pushed himself up to his feet, and walked out of the room. I tried very, very hard not to think. About him, about me, about anything. I laid back against the couch, and let myself fall asleep right then and there.

“I—I just don’t want to be the one who gets left behind.” Camille confessed, and Harry’s heart broke. He should have been more specific—more understanding. Sometimes he just got so wrapped up in his plans that he forgot other people weren’t in his head. He should have been clearer.

“No, no of course not. We all get out of here or none of us do. This isn’t about where we came from anymore. This is about the fact that we’ve all been mistreated, all been abused here. And we will get out—come hell or high water. We will find out what happened to our families, and we will find a way to make sure this will never happen to anyone else again.” Harry pulled Camille into his arms and felt her rest against his chest. “No one is getting left behind. Especially not you.”

“Especially not me?” Camille sighed against him.

“Especially not you,” Harry repeated, “No matter what.”

“It’s really good to hear you say that.” He could practically feel the relief coming off her. Perhaps they were more alike than he thought.

It was a phone call, a small, single phone call, and Henry’s world collapsed around its ears. He’d gotten a call once that his mother was dead, and that was bad. He’d gotten another call that his wife had been in a car accident, and the panic and fear in that one drove him near mad for hours until he could get to the hospital, until the doctors could properly assess the damage.

But this phone call was three words long, said in a scared boy’s voice. “Henry. It’s Lot.” Henry left work without a word to anyone. He just got into his car and started to drive. At some point, he called his wife, to let her know where he was going, and he promised to call her again when they had more details.

He went straight to the hospital, because with that tone, with that panic from Colt, they had to already be at the hospital. He found Colt pacing in the waiting room, who turned and walked towards Henry with a vengeance. “They won’t let me go in. I’m not family. I don’t know what’s going on.”

Henry threw an arm over the boy’s (he was twenty-four now, he should probably stop calling him boy) shoulders, and strode up to the nurses office. For a moment the nurse seemed to consider telling Henry that it was family only, that Colt couldn’t come, but Henry shut her down with a look so fierce it made Colt squirm, and he wasn’t even on the receiving end.

They found out she was sedated, doctors wanted to keep her like that for a little while. They still weren’t hundred percent sure what she’d taken, but she was losing her mind when Colt brought her in, and she hadn’t been looking to stop anytime soon. They had to sedate her so that at the very least her heart would slow down that she wouldn’t go into cardiac arrest.

The doctors gave a lot more mumbo jumbo, only some of Henry was able to decipher, and Colt even less. They thanked the doctor. And for a while they sat silently. And then the careful question. The one Henry didn’t want to ask but needed an answer to.

“Colt. Was it an accident? Or an attempt?”

“I don’t” Colt cleared his throat and tried again. “I don’t know, Henry. I’m so sorry, I’m so so sorry, I don’t know.” Henry could see just how desperately Colt was trying not to cry. There was the woman that he loved laying on a hospital bed, put there by her own actions, and he didn’t even know if it was intentional or not, but he was trying to hold it all together. And Henry respected that instinct, but it was bullshit.

“Hey,” He pulled Colt into a hug. For a second, the kid went stiff, trying to stay strong, but then he melted. He was sobbing into Henry’s shoulder, the gross sobbing of a scared boy. There was nothing dignified about Colt in that moment, and to be perfectly honest, Henry wouldn’t have the man in love with his sister any other way.

“I’m sorry, Henry. I should have kept a better eye on her. Or, I should have been watching out for her. I should have seen the signs that it was going badly or noticed that she was using again or something. I should have seen something.”

“No, Colt, no. This isn’t on you. It’s not even fully on her. It’s complicated–life’s complicated Colt, and this is no different, it’s no one’s fault, and it’s everyone’s fault. We just have to make sure that Lot gets better. Our job is to make sure that Lot gets better. And our goal to never end up in this situation again. Okay. Promise me right now, you and I will try our very hardest at all costs to make sure that this does not happen again. Can you promise me, Colt?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I promise.” He’d started to calm down now, not shaking as I hard. “I promise, for Lot, I will do everything I can to make sure that she gets healthy again.”

“Good.” Henry let Colt go, and Colt went back to his little chair at Lot’s bedside, slipping her unfeeling hand back into his.

“What is it that you want me to do, Clark? What do you expect from me?” Marjorie sounded angry, but he knew she wasn’t. She was tired. Exasperated. He was too, and he wanted more than anything to make it easier for her—for them both. But he didn’t have that luxury.

He just had to let her seem angry, let her rant and rail and say things she didn’t mean. Then he had to forgive her easily when she felt guilty tomorrow. That was the balance that they struck. After all, she’d forgiven him for a lot more—it was the least he could do to let her know that he understood. Because he did.

It was a terrible situation. All they had now was each other. If they stopped forgiving each other—what would be left?